Best Keystroke Poems
A glint in the black, like stars
Pearly, polished, pointy peaks of a fiend
Fangs of self-deprecation, puncturing every effort
Coursing the flow of doubt, discouragement and defeat
I may not see your face, beast, but your teeth betray you in darkness
Dripping with the blood of my best effort and intention
Inexperience and ignorance, clotting ...
I am but a babe in the woods of poetic expression
Searching like Hansel, for crumbs of excuse and artistic insight
Oh, I see your vestiges, hear the gnawing of your dismal disregard
And your umbra shades every scribble ... every keystroke
But I know you well ... I know who placed you there
Yet, with a sword forged in kind encouragement and friendships, rare
I will stand on the battlements, and fight to the end
And should you gain the last word, it shall be inscribed ... in my blood.
~ 8th Place ~ in the "Plucking the Poisonous Parrot" Poetry Contest, Maureen McGreavy, Judge & Sponsor.
It sat there—not as metal, not as memory,
but as something half-asleep and listening.
A quiet creature of keys and shadows,
its body dulled by dust, its spirit still humming
beneath the years.
It had known the weight of a man
who believed words could bend the world~
a man whose hands were rough with labor
yet gentle with letters, as if each keystroke
were a small salvation.
I remember the music of it~
that click-clack cadence like rain on a tin roof,
like a heartbeat learning to speak.
I was a child then, cross-legged under his desk,
catching the syllables like fireflies,
not knowing they were seeds, not knowing they were mine.
When Granddad passed, I carried the machine upward
as though escorting a relic to its resting place~
a silent procession through the narrow throat of the attic.
It waited there—through summers that smelt of cedar and heat,
through winters that whispered of things forgotten, it waited~
a sentinel of stories I was too afraid to write.
Years later, the attic groaned under my return,
as if recognizing the footsteps of someone
who had once believed in beginnings.
The machine was still there, its silhouette steady,
its longing patient. It had survived because some things endure
even when we abandon them~
faith, memory, and the quiet insistence of a dream
we pretend we outgrew.
When I touched it, the dust rose like breath.
The first key resisted-a refusal,
a reminder of all the years I’d resisted myself.
But then, a single letter, dark and certain,
punched through the page like a pulse returning.
By the third paragraph, I understood:
I had not resurrected the machine. It had resurrected me.
And somewhere between the rafters and the rising words,
I realized this truth: I was never the one writing the story.
I was the story finally finding its way back to the page.
The accompanying memoir vignette can be read at poetrysoup.com/short_stories/a_dream_deferred_13827
It’s May 18th, 2022. I’m poised, alone, heart pounding, in front of my laptop, waiting for courage, my finger hovering over the return key, like a child hoping the timing of my keystroke will bring me luck.
I took this summer off - which drove my mom absolutely CrAzY. “You CAN’T!” she’d said last month, only to be overruled by my Grandmère. Now I’m home for summer break and tonight she’s flush with exasperation.
“You should have applied for a dean’s fellowship,” she said, her voice rising as she rubs her hands together, as if scrubbing for an operating room procedure, “and a summer research position!” She’s practically twirling with suppressed emotion.
I get why she’s upset. She only goes “deep end” when she's worried about my future. She knows what’s needed to get a medical school slot in 2025 like other moms know their favorite recipe - after all, she’s done this twice before.
Leong’s upstairs, avoiding this family scene. When I described my family expectations as “hustle culture,” to my roommates, they all understood - we’re that much alike.
Step (my stepfather) is trying to de-escalate and calm us (her) down. “Look,” he says, holding up his hands like someone talking down a gunman, “NEXT summer she’ll buckle down, get in more volunteer hours and get a dean’s research fellowship” he says, sliding his eyes to me. I nod “ok” almost imperceptibly. “It’s ok to start grinding sophomore year - that’s what I did.”
OOOO! She turned to him and if looks could kill, he would have exploded like someone in a Tarantino movie.
By some psychic grace my Grandmère chose that moment to call. Step and I fled the den like it were on fire, going our separate ways to halve the chance of being followed.
In my dark room, lit only by the light of my MacBook, a quiver runs through me, and I finally press return. My grades for Spring semester - and Freshman year come up. My eyes water and I relax back against my chair when I see “Dean's List.”
I smile to myself, and slowly, fiercely I clench my fist with a “YESS!" As I postulate my victorious reprieve.
Tho’ the soft voice has an aristocratic tone,
the haughty attitude ain’t no street gutter different:
Being rude ... dropping shade
Dark keystroke mood,
shallow indigo indifference shown
Another bad online day made
Royal pain of a social media princess
giving good grief
With a sunny disposition staged
That same persona
is acting out in public again —
Digital tongue intoxicated by the viral fame
Drunken thoughts of superiority
are spilled on the laptop
As her mental runt rants spew more shame
But[t] always couched behind banal positivity,
trite emoji expressions
Mousy pooter loves to sphincter the blame
The same gaslight persona
is acting out in the public forum again —
Low heel clicks from lattice lips
Drama queen on a toilet spin,
gossip lovers say she has such a hater handle
Royal flush of a sent sewer clip
Petty web of inane intrigue
got much diva curiosity following her
A Twitter litter trail of trash-talking catnip
Different window dressing edit, peppermint vetted,
has the same bittersweet facade —
Hard candy hits from her gentle fingertips
Masterful paint strokes of his artistic hand.
Should use zinnias or roses that are banned?
Decides upon an honored verdant ginger jar
Muse stirs up imagination from afar
Maestro’s every keystroke magnificently planned.
Masterful paint strokes of his artistic hand
Waiting now for proud pink zinnias to come to life
The lovesick artist paints them for his lovely wife
Painting will be revered for hundreds of years
This knowledge might well reduce Verster to tears
Masterful paint strokes of his artistic hand,
Ginger jar intelligently feathered and fanned.
Wife adored this one, thought it was his best.
Her enthusiasm was not a real test.
Artist gritted up paint with particles of sand
Masterful paint strokes of his artistic hand.
one night i dreamt i was surfing in cyberspace &
many images flickered in Adobe Flash
with every movement made, every keystroke &
slide of the mouse to & fro,
i hadn’t a clue (in real time), but i knew
that there were centillions of digital footsteps
being made with every moment
leaving their print upon the world within the screen
(still outside my own physical self)---
while my own history could partially be brought up
manually on my PC, i knew that
every phone call, every movie watched & every second
spent on the web,
had been recorded somewhere,
being held for an indeterminate amount of time &
unlike those nutjobs who say they had a
“near death experience” &
their lives flashed before their eyes,
i myself was fairly certain that
i would never come in complete contact with
this shadow of online presence.
this, however, did not bother me,
because whether my life was dragging down deep in
the gutter or
flying up in the air by the seat of its pants,
i was grounded in the cooling light of backlit LED pixels,
which would be with me until my dying day
(or until i became one with them in the future).
and there was no conversation with my PC,
because it was not a capable artificial intelligence
(as of yet) & therefore it had to abide my own human
error
(alas, PC, i pity thee) &
unlike the fictional “lord” of those religious idiots out there
walking in the sand,
it did not “speak to me” when i was down on my knees
squinting to myself with hands clasped
(um, for i wasn’t),
conversating inside my own head
hoping for answers to questions
to magically arise from my own fragmented,
severely delusional &
quite obviously
bat*****
mad
psyche.
no, there was no made up excuse
for which this human had to look to
in order to alleviate responsibility for those things
that are the most absolutely horrible
which all of us humans have done to each other,
the world around us &
to ourselves,
but rather
only quality time spent
between myself & my computer,
which had evolved from a less impressive model to its
current state,
but which would be outdated in a few years &
get scrapped for a better one,
until its own superiority
surpassed my own &
i needed to become one with it---
then, there would be no
digital footprints at all,
for they’d all be
within.
Why should the mimic apologize?
Where are the cupboards?
Where are the wages?
Where is the tailor? I had
no use for algebra, I knew it-
in as much incognito on a prefabricated track,
in order that....
free thinking then supposing,
til warning for dreamless help provided,
a typewritten treat from this meditative cell on
a bi-directional night, just as incensing this layer, once
shouting, against kaleidoscoped winds...
Will the dubious cartoon walk on top of the comparison?
or will the prevailing keystroke provoke a smashing debt?
Their marriage possessed an alcoholic copyright.
just as the about face twists the rear....
A wizard paces..... surveying the blackboard
just when a scholar stands,
and rocks across a page, so that unless
Some author squeezes, a western dialect,
lest now his leisure violates,
a once welcomed, road of gold on the critical side, in as much until
and even faster still, a projecting spontaneous cricket,
now in a graveyard embarrassed by his wasteful song,
messy thoughts, broken prized belief,
sweeping away the cheat,
disregarding the window from the top,
so that a porter yawns,
outside the offending captor, who wears a wolf pendant,
underneath the inside havoc, if only
the technology collapses before
the funerals, thick attack, talk on top,
of frozen outlines, and a leather sofa cracked,
from opinions changing, as correspondence leaked,
so behind smoke, a fire of desire lurking near the conflicting repertoire,
next to the guilty bystander, raining like a thief, now interferes, who
stirs the sticks... across the crossroads,
Can the music spin the guilty onto a bandwagon until the other staggering strangers advancing,
to the next fizzy, dizzy, bog...
while guides await in order to assault corrupted fantasies,
beside crystal strips, where rusty knights in armor, sitting on a park bench
trying every half measure,
disturbing breezes,
in the haze of memories. Stir these random thoughts and let their impressions talk to you and one another.
Who knows how the mind really works?
In a childhood long past
We saw images in the sky
And we made up stories
As the clouds flew by.
Our imaginations soared
On a bright summer day
We lay in the mown grass
Our mind left to stray.
Now thoughts are stored
In a cloud, like a yoke
Retrieved by all to see
With just a keystroke.
A fresh college graduate looking for a job
To undergo trials one of which is the typing test
Handed over a text passage to pound on the keypad
Typing 40 to 50 words per minute, I needed to press
Facing a manual typewriter, rested fingers to home keys
Try to feel the small bumps on the F and J keys
Now confident, curled fingers to position strategically
Hoping to type the text reflexively
Altering the upper and lower case, pinky fingers strike shift keys
Reaching the number keys on upper level makes it fiddly
Pressing the keys very hard to swing the type-bar up
The carriage travels to the far right sluggishly
Leaving an imprint of the characters
I was whisked away by my disappointment
Never repeat same fate in front of a manual typewriter
The rhythm goes with each keystroke adapting to its component
The next day I saw a Remington typewriter
So old that typebars entangled so often
Curious to type words, always an attempter
At its clickety-clack sound, a relic of a bygone age
15 May 2013
We are caught up in this digital distance
Tangled in strings of binary code
Texting in sequence but in silence
Transmitting thoughts on keystroke roads.
We are caught up in tactile indigence
An impoverished need for human touch
We receive electronic mental perceptions
By fonts implied as such.
We are caught up in digital rambling
Ritualistic taps of thoughts and rhymes
Suffocating until we tap, release and enter
Into the electronically charged sublime.
I'm hacking into your carnival heart
I've reached the land of flying
Program codes and the umbrella of life
Allow the righteous keystroke
To reassemble loving proportions
In turn
I will give you the source code
Return time to its maker
Finding sunken sprawling libraries
Untorched and glowing for poised
Truest traveler on the beaches of memory
We will sync these links
And hyperlink hieroglyphs
The song dance of finders keepers
And a glue to seal our medicine
Lovers time after time
I see you flicker across my screen
I know I’m in for another round
The way you touch me gives me chills
All this without a single sound.
But OH when my eyes I do close
I have found my paradise in you
This thing we call cyber sex
Is very exciting and brand new.
The way you caress my skin with words
Makes me tingle leaves me unnerved
Your kisses I feel as if they were real
With every keystroke you trace my curves.
We make love without ever touching
In this world we call cyber sex
He has put a curse on me for sure
Or is it me that holds the hex?
the headiness of now
swirl of keystroke and ideal
new pages
new thoughts
flying on ether
buoyed by excited neutrons
flared by the plasma
of a thousand faceless pens
type it
spill it
splash it on out with a careless eye
falling slow on burning diodes
bundled up
like a mind's autumn harvest
fed to a soul's hearth
dripping with embers
spilt out sooted and crisp
acrid, yet sweetly
an incensical fog
ladled out
from that conjuring elsewhere
sharp as raw silage
sweet as the dew
gathered
gather it
grasp it and renew
bottled summer still shining
uncorked and flown true
so shed the word wonder
baring all the mind's eye
as rapt galleries wait breathless
for every poet's emotional try
rhyme it
(or not)
choose time honored formats
(or not)
but truth be it told
rhyme scheme and meter
can be both lover and shackle
but in matters of the prose
dip your heart
deep into that rarefied font
and evaporate
into
honeyed fog banks
of verse...
Technology
We are 'da bomb'
No poetry here, I'm literal
Earth-to-space-to-earth in a split
There's no crack or crevice a bug can hide
(Thusly, we decide who's insect ... or viable asset)
Eye in the sky?!? An eagle has nothing on us
Day or night, peacetime or conflict time
One tiny skin-to-plastic keystroke
And your worries are over
Just another day
For US.
we share a love, you and I;
uploaded amongst the wireless bandwidths, bits and bytes, enmeshed and encrypted.
a love transcending beyond the mesh of space and time;
a love that’s spread on the pane of an lcd screen.
with every keystroke, our passion we spell;
coded texts morph into fiery love making while i trace your avatar with my mouse
and i fiercely kiss the air as i view your web cam view
while you my love, you fondle your bosom in sheer ecstasy.
and a collective sigh we shared, as we reach our pseudo ******;
the router lost its connection; and we, my love, are no longer entwined.
in the disconnected void i wonder- truly, we are but strangers – on when we will first meet.
if we do my dear, will we share this love in REALITY?